Yeah lack of community identity is probably the single biggest issue here in FL.  You might have 10+ schools within a few miles of each other in any metro area.  Unless your kid is a student at that school, there's no community bonding. 

Having lived in Texas for 5 years, I can attest that there are some meaningful differences from Florida.  To begin with, property taxes are significantly higher, so there is more money available for public school kinds of things.  My wife's pay and benefits as a public-school teacher there were very good.  Some would argue that you get what you pay for. In terms of football culture, it is definitely a different level in terms of community support.  In larger cities, a school district may have 8-12 high schools, but every high school does not have its own stadium.  The school district may have 2-3 multi-use stadiums seating 10-15,000 and shared on Thursday-Saturday nights.  Attendance for a regular season game may be 8-10,000, and I attended one regional playoff game in the University of Texas stadium with 40,000 in attendance.  In small communities with one high school, the sky is the limit with what financial resources that particular community might have.  The bands, dance teams, and cheerleaders dwarf in size what I have seen in Florida.   I will say that in the panhandle, I have seen excellent game-day atmospheres at Niceville, Choctaw, Crestview, Pace, Tate, and Navarre.  I think this is because these are primarily "one community, one high school" types of settings.  On a larger level, you cannot just infuse "culture" into a state such as Florida by waving a magic wand.  I'm afraid I don't have the single answer to improve the status of high school football in Florida.  

Texas has independent school districts. There might be only one high school in a particular district with their own school board and superintendent dedicated to that one high school. It would be like PHU being governed by people that only have PHU's educational and athletic interest at heart. Mix in some oil money and you have those amazing facilities and community backing. 

The truth is Florida does not really have a high school football culture.  Despite having the best raw talent in the country we don’t support it like some other states do.  If we did this site would average over 100 posts a day during the football season.  The promotion of the high school football product is sorely lacking in this state. Thanks for this post PinellasFB.  My question for the board would be this (I’m know this has been discussed here before): If you had the power, within reason, what would you do to promote Florida High School Football?  I would love to hear your ideas.

How much is MNW paying Coach Bridgewater?  I would guess $0.  He does not need the money.  He probably donates money to the program.  Supposedly his net worth is more than $20 million.